Born:
August 28, 1828, Annapolis, Maryland. After obtaining a primary education
in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, he graduated from New York University Medical
College in 1848. In 1849 he was appointed Assistant Surgeon in the Army
Medical Corps and for 10 years served at various posts, in the meantime
publishing in 1857 a widely read treatise on nutrition.

In 1860 he resigned in order
to accept professorship at the University of Maryland, which he gave up
the following year together with a profitable practice in Baltimore, to
go back into the army. A prime example of evils of seniority system, "the
length of his previous service and brilliance of his qualifications were
ignored and he was entered at the bottom of the list of Assistant Surgeons."

In the months that followed,
his abilities were pressed upon the administration by a barrage of letters
and physicians' delegations - in the main instigated by the pro-Hammond
Sanitary Commission and George B. McClellan - with the result that he was
appointed Surgeon General with the rank of Brigadier General, April 25,
1862. He began at once to revitalize the Medical Department: appropriations
were increased tenfold; younger men were placed in prominent positions
of responsibility; red tape was eliminated; and a much needed ambulance
corps was organized.

Many of his edicts conflicted
with other vested interests and soon his relations with all-powerful Secretary
of War Edwin M. Stanton began to deteriorate. At length, after being ordered
away from Washington, DC and an acting successor named, he demanded a court-martial.
Having engaged in a game of power politics with Stanton, he should not
have been surprised that, upon the flimsiest evidence, he was convicted
of ungentlemanly conduct and dismissed from the service. Nevertheless he
enjoyed a most distinguished postbellum career; became a pioneer in treatment
of nervous and mental diseases; wrote authoritatively on a variety of subjects.

He died at Washington, DC, January
5, 1900.

In 1878 Congress approved a bill
authorizing restoration to service if justice so indicated. Accordingly
he was restored and placed on the retired list with the grade of Brigadier
General, making possible his eventual burial in Arlington National Cemetery.
He lies there in Section 1, Grave 465. His wife, Ester Dyer Hammond (died
April 13, 1925) lies with him.